Saturday, February 16, 2013

Ten years ago I was in a trailer behind the church on Webster Avenue in the South Bronx where my school used to rent classroom space, staring at the bored, glazed over faces of the kids in the first theater class I had ever taught. Those straight A's I was pulling in my graduate program at Teachers College didn't matter worth a damn in that make-shift theater classroom. Standing there in front of those kids, I felt like I had no idea how to teach anything to anyone, let alone an art form based on trust and vulnerability A.) to African American and Latino teenagers whose experiences were worlds away from my upper-middle class suburban roots, B.) at a school that trained teachers to embody a top-down, boot-camp style of classroom management (and routinely fired the ones who couldn't pass muster), and C.) in a neighborhood where street codes punished kids for risking emotional openness with taunts and even violence.

About halfway through that first year, at a moment when I was seriously considering quitting teaching and never looking back, a 9th grader named Denisse Polanco made the audacious suggestion that we put on a musical. I tried to explain to her that I had never directed a full-length show before and that I was way too overwhelmed with my other teaching responsibilities to take on such an ambitious project. But Denisse wasn't having any of it. Never mind that she herself had zero musical theater experience; she arched an eyebrow at me, smiled and said, "Don't worry. I'll help you."

We've come a long way from those days in the church parking lot. A decade later -- (full ofhumbling moments, behind-the-scenes nightmares and hard-won triumphs of student leadership) -- my colleagues, students and I are thrilled to officially unveil a 10-minutedocumentary that chronicles the evolution of the Bronx Prep Performing Arts Academy -- a program which Denisse and many of her fellow Bronx Prep graduates have returned to help nurture and lead. Over the years, the Academy has grown into a multi-generational family of performing artists, designers and directors, many of whom are now pursuing college degrees and careers in the performing arts and mentoring the young actors, directors and designers following in their footsteps.

It feels especially exciting to be marking this milestone on the same week that we're conducting auditions for our 10th musical, a show that pays homage to the classic musical theater forms our students have been steeped in over the past decade while also paving the way for an increasingly inclusive, multicultural generation of Broadway artists and audiences: the Tony-award winning musical In The Heights.

Stay tuned as our kids set aside their corsets, fling off their fedoras and lay down theirFrench revolutionary flags--so they can celebrate their own cultural traditions and family histories in a show that finally feels like home.

*

Special thanks to Academy co-founder Andrew Simon, Academy co-directors Lou Cardenas and Sarah Rosenberg, the whole Bronx Prep artistic staff, the huge crew of creative professionals who have supported us throughout the years, the alumni who continue to nurture and inspire our students, and especially to Bronx Prep Artistic Director and my creative partner in crime, Dr. Geoffrey Kiorpes.

This article was also published on Huffington Post. As always, the views in this post are my own and not those of my school's administration; the students featured in this post agreed to let me share their stories.